Hurting You
by Jimmies Jams
Summary: Finn cannot die. Literally. But at what cost?


I was walking down an ancient corridor made out of dull grey stone slabs, with their edges rounded and their sides cracked as if someone had left them in a dust storm and forget about them. There was dull red sand covering the floor, and looking over my shoulder I could see that our footprints were probably the first in a while. There were runes etched onto some of the slabs; the others had been too badly dulled and rounded to make anything out.

It had been a long week, at least for me. For the girl next to me, it could have been a whole different story; she might've sat around playing on that cool bass of hers, or maybe she's been out hunting whywolves. Who knows? All I know is that it had been a very long week for me.

I had lost an arm, met my human dad and witnessed the death of a time god. I had eaten walls, I had seen a demented zombie that was once a good friend and I had built a tower into outer space. I had even finally got a decent replacement for my arm: it was made of twin steel bars running parallel, with a piece of cloth wrapped just above the claw that was meant to be a hand. Pretty crazy… pretty stressful. So I ended up calling Marcy, or as she prefers it; 'Marceline The vampire queen' so that we could jam out or something: just to lower stress levels below _lethal _and back down to _angsty teenager_. Well, one thing led to another, and we were now strolling down an ancient abandoned dungeon made thousands of years ago, even before the mushroom war. When I had asked Marceline about it, she just shrugged: according to her, humans knew as much about two thousand years ago as we do. Or, how much she does at least: I didn't really know anything about humans.

I turned to Marceline, who was floating low enough that I was almost as tall as her. I wondered If she had any idea where this lead, and just as I was about to ask- She twitched, and suddenly her ears perked up. She was staring straight down the tunnel, eyes wide.

"Finn?"

"Yeah?"

She paused, as if what she was going to say next was controversial in some away, like it was going to _offend _him.

"Finn. There's something up ahead. Something _bad_."

Oh shit. I heard soft chanting in the distance, and then the shifting of sand. Looking down, I saw that the sand was slowly parting underneath my feet. Just as I was about to run I felt a tugging on my shoulder and two slimy tendrils wrap around my ankles.

"FINN! WE GOTTA GO, NOW!" she said, turning around with my claw in hand and tried to float away.

I tried to run, but the tentacles had an iron grip, and held me in place even with Marceline tugging on my prosthetic with all her might. Along with the ever increasing whispers and chants, I heard the crunching of dry sand underneath heavy boots from down the corridor, and another tendril wrapped even further and tighter onto my leg.

My steel arm snapped off.

"GLOB IT!" She said, grabbing out her Axe Bass. She gritted her teeth and swung the Axe down hard on one of the tentacles. Then the unexpected happened: the axe head exploded on contact, flinging shrapnel everywhere. Including into us.

We both screamed from the white hot shards of death that had lodged themselves into our flesh. Marceline had 3 sticking out of her stomach and one in her arm. She screamed and screamed, even when she fell to her knees. Even when her face fell down into the sand. But I didn't fall. Even if I wanted to. Even if I was burning from pain, even if I so badly and desperately wanted just lie down and sleep I couldn't. Something that definitely was _not _a tentacle grabbed my good arm and turned me around slowly. Before I could see what was behind me though, which was probably my doom, something hard hit my head.

Then everything went black.

My eyes cracked open. Well, one of my eyes; the other was just red and the eyelid refused to move, if there even was an eyelid or an eye there. I couldn't tell. Whatever. I pushed myself off the ground with my left arm and checked for any injuries. I checked my right arm: _good, that's still gone_. But when I turned to look at my left arm I almost threw up. Most of the skin had peeled, no, _rotted_ away revealing raw flesh. It had a putrid smell and there was actually, 100% _not fucking around:_ **mold** growing on my arm. I tried to scream but I couldn't: all that came from my throat was a dull grunt that sounded like one of those goo monsters that James turned into. What the _hell_ had happened to me? I stood slowly and looked around. Everything was exactly the same as it was when I walked in: maybe a bit more sand? I couldn't tell, and couldn't care less. I started walking, or staggering rather, down the corridor. I felt a liquid tip out of my mouth

_Hold the phone._

I stopped. I listened. I listened some more. And then I realized I was deaf, so I guess I was just _feeling_, but anyway, I felt inside my chest, waiting, hoping. And then I started walking again, with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

My heart wasn't beating.

It took about half an hour to exit the dungeon: there were a lot of steps, and my legs weren't very cooperative when it came to climbing them. The exit itself was completely sealed with spikey vines, which for some reason I decided to plow right through. I got sponked up on the side of my head in the process, but I didn't realize that until I had already pushed through. It didn't hurt either, in fact, I felt tingly and warm as the black blood started flowing down the side of my head. Like, it was _actually black_. Not just dark red, like, _black_. And at first tried to apply pressure to the wound: It was the right thing to do, right? Wrong. Applying 'pressure' actually led me to a horrifying revelation: it was not that my eye wouldn't work, it was that a large chunk was missing from my head. I slowly reached inside my own skull, expecting to find wet and sticky brain juice that would either jazz me up with wizard eyes, or kill me. But as I moved my hand, I met no resistance. Nothing. My skull was _empty_.

I freaked out. And by freaked out I mean a small amount of black dribble came out of my mouth and I grunted. It was all I could do, really. And then I kept on walking. It wasn't even hard. My backpack didn't even exist, my shorts were a bit ripped up, my steel arm was _gone_, my shirt had rotted and parts were still attached to my chest with dried blood. So, I was going light I guess.

Walking through the forest wasn't that hard, you know, besides the occasional tree-root trip up, but other than that, fine. And then the trees slowly started to thin out and eventually I came across something I recognized: a candy wall. Well, by came across I mean walked into, but anyway, this was good. No, this was _great_! I could find PB and she could explain everything. I broke into a run, or at least a run for a hunk of rotting flesh, which I was. I quickly followed the wall around, unable to hear any banana guards that might have tried to talk to me. I finally reached the gate, and when I turned to the banana guard at the gate, he looked at me for half a second, and exploded. Shrugging, I just waltzed right on in to the candy kingdom.

I looked left. I looked right. And everyone except for good ol' Starchy either opened their mouths and looked like they screamed (couldn't tell), or exploded. Starchy apparently recognized me because he gave me the finger and walked off. Well. I didn't expect that: especially from Starchy. I realized I must have looked like a freak (took me long enough) and started shouting.

I had tried to sound like me; old me or whatever, but apparently I didn't because shouting at them didn't help the situation. I slowly sat down, not wanting to scare the life (literally) out of any more candy dudes. I waited. And waited.

About 5 minutes later I saw _her_. PB. She had a giant gun on her back and was wearing heavy-duty gloves. She looked like she was about to go to war. But whatever, this is_ peebs_. I get up, slowly and look at her. I was swaying from side to side, like a drunk. Then, she opened her mouth and said something I couldn't hear. But she looked angry. Like a candy skunk when you were in its territory. She moved her mouth again and then pulled the massive candy cane gun off of her back. She moved her mouth one last time, and a few seconds later… she fired.

I didn't even feel it. It felt like that numbing stuff had been shoved down my throat and into my gut. I looked down, and there was a hole in my stomach. Like, a _HUGE_ hole. Slowly, I moved my hand around to my back and poked my hand through the hole and waved. Anyway, I looked back up at her, and she was just staring at me. She dropped her gun. She then put her hands in front of her like she was trying to surrender, and walked up to me. When she stopped I realized my shoulders were level with the top of her tiara. Damn, I'd gotten taller. I looked down at her and she looked up at me. Then, she opened her mouth (gasped, I guess) and put her hand on my face. She was stroking my cheek and then she said something. I took her small hand and sharply tugged it upwards, and shoved it into my skull. She screamed or something, and tore her hand away.

She grabbed my hand and turned, and started walking. Or tried to. As she started stepping away from me, she was sharply restricted when I didn't follow her. She turned her head to me and moved her mouth. And motioned with her other hand to follow her. I stood there for about two seconds, processing what she was trying to do, and I figured out she wanted me to walk with her. I weirdly nodded, my head was seemingly loose which made it hard to do so.

We were walking down the streets of the candy kingdom, and candy people were hiding in their homes, in barrels and behind signs. They obviously didn't like the sight of some zombie being led around by _their _princess. Eventually, we made it to the massive rock candy gates of the inner castle, and therefore, somewhere we could 'communicate' in private. She heaved against the door and it slowly opened; evidently this door was not normally opened by her. Once she had finally gotten the door wide open, she motioned for me to come in. We went through a maze of corridors after that. I think. Glob, I wasn't really paying attention to anything except for her. How she was still the same pretty pink princess, and I was a pile of rotting flesh. How the hell had she managed to stay exactly the same for so long? Bleh. Whatever.

I started to focus on where we were going, only to find that we were heading down a stairwell that I didn't recognize. The walls of the stairwell weren't hard candy anymore; they were steel with massive bolts in. We neared the bottom of the steps, and she was grabbing something out of her lab coat pocket, which looked like some sort of golden hammer. The kind that would be used as a trophy; something along those lines, right? Well, it wasn't a trophy. As soon as I walked off of the final step, she whipped around and smashed my face in, with the hammer. HOLY FUCKING SHIT! I stumbled backwards, unable to see. I fell to the floor, shouting. The shouting slowly died down as my ancient lungs gave way to the immense trauma that they must be in. I could feel my chest heaving has the sudden movement took its toll; my chest seemed to be imploding and I could almost feel shredded muscle heaving from the hole in my torso. I was blind, deaf and invincible. I turned over and felt my tongue roll out of my shattered jaw, salivating intensely for some reason, like a dog over a bowl of food. My body felt like it was imploding; moving and writhing in impossible ways. I thought I was dead for a moment but then I felt myself being lifted up and have parts of my body hacked off. I could only feel my head, right arm stump and my chest. The vacant feeling in my body grew stronger; like being winded over and over and over again. I felt something placed into my skull, and I began hearing faint whispers of noise. And it was absolutely horrific. My brain was being bombarded with shouts and cries; the whirring of machines, and the now unbearable feeling that I was being crushed from all sides. My hearing had almost completely returned when something odd happened. The cries turned to screaming and the whirring to screeching of bending metal, as the crushing feeling dissipated. I heard an explosion that rattled my bones and sent me flying. The world around me was getting hot. Really, _really _hot. And then, in an instant, there was a _woosh _and my vision returned and the heat left. It was red at first; like when I first woke up in that grod-forsaken dungeon, but that slowly dissipated to reveal a horrific scene

The lab was… destroyed. Bits of shredded candy, steel and glass were strewn everywhere; it looked like a bomb had gone off. Smoke had filled the room, and molten machine parts surrounded me. What the hell had happened? I was on my stomach and the steel floor seemed to be missing, revealing familiar-looking slabs of stone. I closed my eyes briefly: trying to piece together what the hell had been happening. I was dead. PB was nowhere to be found. And half of my head is… missing? What the hell? I put my hand up to where there previously a hole in my head only to press my fingers up against cool, hard, strands of hair. Whatever was growing on my head was definitely _not _normal hair; it was too rigid. I instinctively moved both hands to my face and only then did I realize that _I had both of my arms_. Snapping my head down, I did indeed see two arms. But my right arm; the one that was previously missing, was not made out of flesh. It was made out of… bubblegum. I stared up my arm and to my shoulder, confirming that my entire arm and shoulder were made of bubblegum, which upon closer inspection seemed to have a gem implanted in it. I looked down at my stomach, shaking, expecting more candy. But I found none. Instead, I found that first of all, my clothes were _gone_, and second: my torso was made up of a horrific mess of steel shrapnel seemingly suspended in ever-present flames with smoke swirling around them. The pieces were red hot and seemed to jerk around randomly, occasionally slicing through a bit of flesh and letting it fall into the inferno that was my body and slowly melt and wither until it was flame like the rest of me. My legs and thighs were made up of solid metal of various color; orange, gold and silver all stood out amongst the sea of dull grey. I stood up, shuddering, and slowly left the laboratory.


End file.
